Typically, a customer at a retail check-out receives a printed paper receipt which details their purchases and their details of their payment transaction, customers are used to that experience. Sometimes a retailer prints a one dimensional barcode on a receipt for their own internal purposes, for example as a discount coupon against a future purchase.
Currently a digital transaction receipt comprises an e-mail message, or an SMS message, sent to the customer detailing their transaction. Typically, this e-mail contains details of purchases such as item description and price and payment method, typically no further information relating to the transaction is included. Usually there is insufficient information contained in this e-mail to permit the easy exchange and return of purchases to the retailer. Also, as it is relatively easy to forge an e-mailed digital receipt there is great opportunity for theft by a third party pretending to be a customer returning counterfeit, or stolen, goods along with a forged digital receipt to receive either a refund or replacement, genuine, goods. Additionally, there are data privacy and security concerns over this type of digital receipt in that the customer must provide an e-mail address or mobile telephone number to the retailer in order to receive the digital receipt.